Source Article from http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/24796106/2014/02/22/immigration-activists-march-through-downtown-phoenix
Immigration activists march through downtown Phoenix
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Immigration reform has become one of the hot topics on Washington’s to-do list. The importance of reform is indisputable — it’s the timing of the changes that’s being argued, with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) vacillating. Initially, he echoed President Barack Obama’s intentions for immediate reform, given by the president during his State of the Union address on January 28. Recently, though, Boehner has changed his mind, saying that reform should wait until 2015, when Republicans may have a better chance of a majority in the Senate as well as the House.
This year, Americans didn’t put immigration as high on their list of importance as some in Washington have, at least according to a Gallup poll released on January 16. Given 19 issues to rate as extremely important, very important, moderately important, or not important at all, Gallup found that those who viewed immigration as extremely or very important for Congress and the president in 2014 placed the issue at the bottom of the list, with 50 percent agreeing.
More From Wall St. Cheat Sheet: Immigration and Free Trade: U.S. Progress Weak With Canada and Mexico
It fell below everything from the economy to education and health care. It was below crime, taxes, “the distribution of income and wealth,” and gun policy in terms of importance. The only issues that those polled found less important for the coming year were government surveillance, abortion, race relations, and LGBT policies.
When it comes to the specifics on immigration, according to the Gallup study, Americans are fairly evenly split on which immigration components should be dealt with first: border security or efforts to deal with undocumented immigrants already in the country. The number finding “Securing U.S. borders” to be extremely important rang in at 43 percent, compared to the 44 percent who said that “Dealing with illegal immigrants already in U.S.” is extremely important.
More From Wall St. Cheat Sheet: Economist: Labor Market Will Gain Momentum This Year
Another poll was taken earlier in February that examined how party affiliation lined up with opinions on the importance of borders and undocumented immigrants. The views of Republicans, Democrats, and independents in 2014 were compared to polling results from 2011, examining two categories: securing U.S. borders and dealing with the current undocumented immigrant population. All sides rated the issues as less important in 2014 than in 2011, with the exception of Democrats on undocumented immigrants within the United States. Thirty-seven percent of Democrats in 2011 said that handling undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. was of vital importance, while 41 percent said the same in 2014.
When respondents were given forced-choice polling in early February, the gap between policy preferences was still minor, with 51 percent saying that already-present undocumented immigrants needed to be dealt with, while 46 percent said border security should take precedence. When put on the spot in 2011, 67 percent placed more importance on border security compared to the 32 percent who were more concerned about undocumented immigrants.
More From Wall St. Cheat Sheet: Will Obama’s Healthcare and Wage Policies Actually Kill Jobs?
The parties have different views on how the current population of undocumented immigrants should be handled going forward, with House Republicans catering to voters who dislike the pathway to legalization that most Democrats favor. The American Farm Bureau released numbers that put the importance of handling America’s immigrant population into perspective.
The nation’s largest farm lobby reported that if enforcement-only policies were taken up by Congress going forward with immigration reform, food prices would rise between 5 and 6 percent, fruit production would plummet by 30 to 61 percent, and vegetable production would fall by 15 to 31 percent as a result of labor force loss
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Do Americans Even Care About Immigration Reform?
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She The People: Immigration reform as a women’s issue
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As chances for immigration reform fade ahead of this year’s congressional elections, the main sticking point seems to be the “pathway to citizenship” for those who are in the country illegally.
Reform opponents don’t want to reward those who break our laws, while activists on the other side refuse to consider a deal that doesn’t naturalize this entire population. Fixing our broken immigration system thus seems to turn on the question of what to do with the estimated 11-12 million illegal aliens living in our midst. (I’m reminded of John Candy’s final movie, Canadian Bacon, where a propaganda bit ominously decries: “Canadians: They walk among us.”)
But both sides are wrong to focus on citizenship and should instead target permanent resident status—otherwise known as green cards.
If you ask immigrants (legal or not) why they come to America, they’ll tell you that it’s to build a better life in a safer country. It’s not to vote in elections, access welfare, or sit on juries, which are the only things citizenship gets you that a green card doesn’t.
Mitt Romney took a lot of heat for his “self-deportation” remarks during the 2012 campaign, but the Great Recession of 2008-2009 saw the first net immigration outflux in more than four decades. It turns out that foreigners, including unauthorized immigrants, respond to economic incentives just like anybody else.
And that’s what this country needs: people willing to work hard and contribute to the economy. Deport the criminals and terrorists, but welcome productive members of society.
Yet there’s no easy way to apply to work here. That is, before even thinking about citizenship, immigrants have to acquire that elusive green card—and there are only a handful of ways to do that (and none at all for so-called unskilled workers).
One is to be very closely related to a current U.S. citizen, and even this path is limited for all but spouses. The second is for refugees. The third is the diversity lottery—random green cards given to people from countries that don’t otherwise send many people here.
The fourth way, finally, is through employment. But these 140,000 annual spots are only available to highly skilled applicants who find an employer willing to pay up to $35,000 in legal and government fees. And they’re further limited by country—such that qualified Indians can wait for their green card for over 10 years.
I personally know something about this, having gotten my green card in 2009 after spending nearly 15 years (my entire adult life) in this country. It was easier for my family to leave the Soviet Union and immigrate to Canada than it was for me to become a U.S. permanent resident. Indeed, earning a law degree and joining the Supreme Court bar—after also interning in Congress and clerking for a federal judge—was more straightforward than getting a green card!
Now that five years have passed—it’s three for those who get green cards through marriage—I’ve put in my naturalization papers. The process should take 6-8 months and consists of nothing more than running my fingerprints through an FBI database and testing me on rudimentary English and civics—which I hope I pass given that I write about law and politics for a living. (Indeed, like most immigrants, I do a job Americans won’t: defending the Constitution.)
So you see that becoming a citizen is far easier than getting a green card—which is exactly backwards!
Shouldn’t the restrictions and inquiries come at the naturalization stage? Every other immigrant-attracting country makes it relatively easy for foreigners to come to work but demands more of would-be citizens.
Of course, politics still get in the way. Democrats care more about what they see as millions of potential votes than improving the lives of the human beings who would cast them. That in turn makes Republicans suspicious of any reforms not centering on walls and guards. And President Obama poisons the well by his lawless executive actions, declining to enforce laws that are on the books and making up others out of whole cloth.
Both sides will have to give, but here good policy is also good politics: expand legal immigration, allow people who contribute to our society to come out of the shadows, and then crack down on the ne’er-do-wells who remain. Forget the citizenship pathway, just open the green-card road.
Source Article from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyashapiro/2014/02/19/what-both-sides-miss-in-the-immigration-debate/
What Both Sides Miss in the Immigration Debate
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Switzerland’s decision to limit
immigration will hurt economic growth, according to economists
who cover the country.
Restrictions on foreigners approved by Swiss voters earlier
this month will hurt growth prospects, according to 16 of 21
responses in Bloomberg’s monthly survey of economists. Five said
the limits will have a negligible effect and none said the curbs
would have a positive impact.
Immigration limits are “clearly negative for growth,”
said Timo Klein, senior economist at IHS Global Insight Inc. in
New York. “The largest effect is not so much from any quotas
themselves but from the direct investment not taking place due
to firms fearing the uncertainty about not getting the personnel
they need in the future to make such investments profitable.”
The Swiss government will have to set a cap for foreigners
within the next three years after 50.3 percent of voters
embraced an initiative by the euro-skeptic Swiss People’s Party
SVP against mass immigration. A quota system for foreigners,
which companies including Nestle SA have warned may undermine
business, would contravene an agreement with the European Union
allowing its citizens to take up jobs freely and jeopardize
other accords as well.
“This should be a considerable drag on potential growth,”
said Manuel Andersch, an analyst at Bayerische Landesbank in
Munich. “The full effect will only be visible once the concrete
immigration rules are known. The stricter the quota, in
particular for high-skilled workers, the larger the drag.”
Switzerland already has upper limits in place for newcomers
from countries outside the EU, such as Canada and Australia.
It’s not yet clear what form the quotas for EU citizens would
take. The government has said it will announce a road map by
June and propose a bill to parliament by the end of the year.
Immigration has boosted growth and helped propel national
output almost 5 percent above pre-crisis levels, the Swiss
National Bank said in November. The Zurich-based central bank
predicts the economy will grow 2 percent this year, with
consumer prices climbing 0.2 percent.
According to Credit Suisse Group AG economists Claude Maurer and Maxime Botteron in Zurich, lower immigration will
damp annual growth by 0.3 percentage point. Jordan Rochester, an
economist at Nomura International Plc in London, predicts a drag
of 2 percentage points over a 10-year period, while Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Merrion Capital Group Ltd. in
Dublin, expects growth rates to be 0.1 percentage point to 0.2
percentage point lower over the next decade.
“The biggest negative effect” will come early on as
companies delay investing in equipment, said Reto Huenerwadel,
senior economist at UBS AG in Zurich. As time passes, the impact
could be offset, for example by gains in productivity, he said.
The decision to enact immigration limits met with
condemnation among some European officials, with French Industry
Minister Arnaud Montebourg deeming it tantamount to economic
“suicide.”
Allowing EU citizens to take jobs in Switzerland is part of
a series of agreements governing trade in goods and services,
the environment, and scientific research, all of which could now
fall. The EU is Switzerland’s top destination for exports.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned yesterday against
any hasty judgments and said the EU must find a solution.
Among those warning of EU reprisals is Alastair Winter,
chief economist at Daniel Stewart & Co. in London. It’s “too
early to say but the EU will retaliate,” he said.
The survey also found that consensus is growing among
economists that the SNB won’t remove its cap of 1.20 per euro on
the franc before next year. It implemented the ceiling in 2011,
when investors seeking protection from the euro area’s debt
crisis boosted the Swiss currency, threatening to precipitate
deflation and a recession.
Last month, SNB President Thomas Jordan pledged to keep the
cap in place “for the foreseeable future.”
Just 9 percent of the economists surveyed said the SNB will
lift the ceiling this year, compared with 15 percent a month
ago. A plurality — 41 percent — predict an exit in 2015, up
from 35 percent last month, and 36 percent see the move in 2016,
the survey found.
The franc is seen weakening to 1.25 per euro by the end of
2014, before falling to 1.30 per euro in 2015 and 1.34 per euro
in 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The Swiss franc needs to have weakened to well above 1.30
per euro in order for the SNB to consider it ‘‘safe’’ to remove
the cap,” Klein at IHS said.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Andre Tartar in London at
atartar@bloomberg.net;
Catherine Bosley in Zurich at
cbosley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Craig Stirling at
cstirling1@bloomberg.net
Source Article from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-19/swiss-immigration-curbs-seen-as-threat-to-economic-growth.html
Swiss Immigration Curbs Seen as Threat to Economic Growth
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A protest led by immigration-reform activists ended in arrests on Monday as religious leaders, immigrants, and supporters gathered in front of the White House to call for change in deportation policies that they believe are inhumane and immoral.
“People are deported in the middle of the night to Northern Mexico in places that we know that the U.S. government has currently advised their personnel shouldn’t be around on the streets at night,” said protestor Shaina Aber, an employee of the Jesuits of the United States. “This is not in line with our humanitarian values either as a nation”.
Rev. Noel Anderson with the United Church of Christ was among those arrested, and stated that his objective was to force President Obama and Congress to pass legislation to end these deportations.
“It’s a system that deports people and breaks up families,” added Brother Brian McLaughlin of Divine Work Missionaries. “To have that broken family doesn’t benefit anyone.”
The Democratic-controlled Senate passed immigration-reform last year that would grant legal status — and provide a path to citizenship — to millions of undocumented immigrants. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, however, has yet to move forward with any legislation.
Still, immigration-reform advocates believe President Obama can take executive action to curtail these deportations.
“We know that President Obama has that in his power, executive action, to go ahead and defer action for all undocumented people, similar to the deferred action for childhood arrivals,” Rev. Anderson said. “We will continue our pressure on legislation and we believe that all movement from the faith community and the immigrant rights community calling for a stop in deportation will cause both the House and President Obama to do the right thing.”
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Immigration Protest Near White House Ends in Arrests
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Increased immigration is unlikely to increase the size of the welfare state
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By Tovin Lapan (contact) 
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014 | 2 a.m.
Mirroring a nationwide trend, Metro Police and immigration officials overseeing Nevada are placing a higher proportion of immigration holds on people with previous criminal convictions, according to a recent report.
The report shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials nationwide are targeting more people with criminal convictions when issuing a detainer, a request to a local law enforcement agency to hold someone for up to 48 hours while immigration officials determine if they will take the subject into custody.
There is still a wide variance across the country in how immigration detainers are applied, according to the authors of the report, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University — and in the majority of cases, detainers are issued for people with either no previous conviction or a minor offense on their record.
The program has caught U.S. citizens in its net — for the first time the federal government is facing a lawsuit for violating the constitutional rights of a woman detained in Rhode Island.
Nationally, half of all detainers in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 were applied to people with criminal convictions, according to information obtained by TRAC. From 2008 to 2011, 23 percent were for people with a prior conviction, indicating a growing focus on criminal offenders.
For detainers issued from 2012-2013 in Nevada, 53 percent of the people had no prior convictions. Of the 4,065 issued, 2,645 were for people in custody at Clark County Detention Center. At the jail run by Metro Police, 56 percent of those with detainers had no prior convictions, the stated area of focus under federal guidelines updated in 2010.
“The data collected from our partners at ICE and from LVMPD show a successful track record of removal of criminal aliens from the Las Vegas community,” said Metro Deputy Chief Todd Fasulo, who oversees the detention center. “Our combined focus in the apprehension on convicted felons, repeat offenders, and other ICE priorities is in alignment with the vision of the LVMPD for the Las Vegas community to be the safest community in America.”
Fasulo added that ICE agents typically pick up subjects within hours of being notified by Metro Police, and the program has not affected the management of the jail.
Nevada is squarely in the middle of a widely varying program. On the extreme ends, 74 percent of detainers issued in Missouri are for people with no convictions and just 29 percent of the detainers in Idaho are for those with no convictions.
Prior to 2010, the guidelines also included those arrested on criminal charges, not just those found guilty.
In a previous study from TRAC that looked at fiscal years 2008 through 2011, 36 percent of detainers issued at the Clark County jail were for previously convicted criminals.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrest a suspected illegal immigrant in Santa Ana, Calif., in this 2007 file photo.
Nationwide, 12 percent of detainers are for people with Level 1 convictions, the most serious felonies, and 6 percent are applied to people with Level 2 convictions, some lesser felonies and multiple misdemeanors. The percentages for Nevada reflect the national figures.
A Migration Policy Institute report, which noted that Metro Police spend $1.3 million a year on personnel costs for specially trained officers who perform some duties normally reserved for federal immigration officers, lauded the Metro program as one that stood out nationally for its focus on the most dangerous people in the community, and for taking pains not to erode the relationship between immigrants and law enforcement.
“The way the program operates in three of our study sites, particularly Las Vegas, shows that it is possible to have a partnership between ICE and state or local law enforcement that does not substantially threaten or intimidate immigrant communities,” the authors of the report state.
Immigrant advocates and Hispanic organizations have criticized such programs for fomenting distrust between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, reducing the likelihood that crimes will be reported.
“ICE detainers presume the person being held is guilty, thus violating the Constitution’s search and seizure protections and guarantee of due process,” American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada executive director Tod Story said. “Holding someone without cause or evidence and then looking for evidence is exactly what the Constitution seeks to prevent. U.S. citizens and innocent individuals have frequently been detained without due process, because of faulty record keeping, mistaken identity or racial profiling.”
TRAC also notes in a recent report that between 2008 and 2012, 834 U.S. citizens, including 10 in Nevada, were held on an immigration detainer, a violation of the law. Last week, a federal judge allowed a suit against the government to proceed in which a U.S. citizen is seeking damages for being held under an immigration detainer.
“Since these agreements are optional for Las Vegas Metro and every police department, we should rescind these agreements,” Story said. “Police departments who enter into these agreements are liable for their actions, and police officers should not be doing the work of the federal government; they are needed to serve and protect the people of our local communities.”
The federal government has continually revised the priorities when issuing detainers, increasingly focusing on serious criminals. Detainers may also be issued for people who already have a deportation order or for someone who was deported and illegally re-entered the country, a felony. Not everyone for whom a detainer is issued is taken into federal custody, but the extra time provides immigration officials an opportunity to research a particular person’s case before they are released.
In fiscal year 2013, 98 percent of the 360,313 deportations ICE executed were for people who met one or more of the agency’s enforcement priorities.
“ICE is focused on sensible, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens and those apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States,” ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.
In fiscal year 2013, ICE deported a record 216,810 convicted criminals, 110,115 from the interior of the country, nearly double the number of criminal aliens removed in fiscal year 2008.
Source Article from http://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/feb/18/immigration-holds-focusing-more-criminals/
Immigration holds focusing more on criminals
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Second Education Minister, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said before this, the department did not station its officers at the EMGS but managed the records of the foreign students at the department’s office.
He said the EMGS, which began operations last year, received complaints, including of confusion, when applications for permits were submitted at the one-stop centres because there were no immigration officers.
“The changes and improvement in the EMGS will hopefully be for the good when 11 immigration officers are placed there to facilitate the processing of applications for international student pass.
“Besides that, the EMGS has been asked to work with private institutions on improvements which must be done from time to time to ensure that the entry of international students into our country is maintained and improved,” he told reporters after visiting the EMGS Integrated One-Stop centre in Kuala Lumpur, Monday.
Also present were the Education Ministry Secretary-General Datuk Dr Madinah Mohamad, Second Secretary-General Datuk Seri Dr Zaini Ujang, Deputy Director (Private) Department of Higher Education Datuk Prof Dr Roziah Omar and Immigration Department’s Deputy Director General (Management), Abdul Halim Abdul Rahman.
Idris said for the whole of 2013, the EMGS processed almost 30,000 applications from international students for entry into the country.
He said private institutions were constantly in contact with the EMGS and provided accurate information about their international students to avoid abuse of student passes.
“The EMGS now has a tracking system, so it is able to find out where the students are and what courses they registered and in which private institution. So the question of abuse no longer arises.
“Action will be taken against any private institution which does not provide the complete information of their international students to the EMGS,” he said.
He said, to date there were 11,200 international students in all the public and private institutions in the country.
“For now, the EMGS is only focused on the international students who are in private institutions but it will be expanded to include those in the public sector too,” he said
The EMGS which is based in Menara TA One, Jalan P. Ramlee and started operations on Feb 4, 2013, introduced the ‘Student Application and Registration System’ (STARS) application which could be used by all private institutions.
The institutions were integrated with the system in the immigration department to help process the applications for international student passes.
Based on records, the capacity of minimum daily processing rate by the EMGS was 200.
Besides being a centre for the collection of data of international students, the EMGS also managed health checks and health insurance packages for them.
–BERNAMA
Source Article from http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/ge/newsgeneral.php?id=1015294
Immigration Officers Placed At EMGS Starting Monday
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Distilled to their discouraging essence, Republicans’ reasons for retreating from immigration reform reflect waning confidence in American culture and in the political mission only Republicans can perform — restoring America’s economic vigor. Without this, the nation will have a dismal future only Democrats can relish: government growing in order to allocate scarce opportunity.
Many say addressing immigration will distract from a focus on ObamaCare. But a mature party avoids monomania, and ObamaCare’s defects are obvious enough that voters won’t require nine more months of reminders.
Many Republicans say immigration policy divides their party. If, however, the party becomes a gaggle of veto groups enforcing unanimities, it will become what completely harmonious parties are: small.
Many Republicans see in immigrants only future Democratic votes. Yet US history tells a consistent story — the party identified with prosperity, and hence opportunity, prospers.
Many Republicans have understandable cultural concerns, worrying that immigrants from this hemisphere do not experience the “psychological guillotine” that severed trans-Atlantic immigrants from prior allegiances. But is there data proving that American culture has lost its assimilative power? Thirty-five percent of illegal adult immigrants have been here at least 15 years, 28 percent for 10 to 14 years and only 15 percent for less than five years. Thirty-five percent own their homes. Are we sure they are resisting assimilation?
Many Republicans rightly say control of borders is an essential ingredient of national sovereignty. But net immigration from Mexico has recently been approximately zero. Border Patrol spending quadrupled in the 1990s and tripled in the 2000s. With illegal entries near a 40-year low, and a 2012 Government Accountability Office assessment that border security was then 84 percent effective, will a “border surge” of $30 billion more for the further militarization (actually, the East Germanization) of the 1,969 miles assuage remaining worries?
Many say President Obama can’t be trusted to enforce reforms. This is no reason for not improving immigration laws that subsequent presidents will respect. Besides, the Obama administration’s deportations are, if anything, excessive, made possible by post-9/11 technological and manpower resources. As The Economist tartly notes, “A mass murder committed by mostly Saudi terrorists resulted in an almost limitless amount of money being made available for the deportation of Mexican house-painters.”
Many say immigration runs counter to US social policies aiming to reduce the number of people with low levels of skill and education, and must further depress the wages of Americans who, at the bottom of the economic ladder, are already paying the price for today’s economic anemia. This is true. But so is this: The Congressional Budget Office says an initial slight reduction of low wages (0.1 percent in a decade) will be followed by increased economic growth partly attributable to immigrants.
Immigration is the entrepreneurial act of taking the risk of uprooting oneself and plunging into uncertainty. Small wonder, then, that immigrants are about 20 percent of owners of small businesses, and that more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.
George W. Bush was the first president since Woodrow Wilson to serve two terms and leave office with the average household income lower than when he entered it. Obama may be the second when he leaves during the eighth year of a wretched recovery.
Forty-seven percent of the House Republican conference has been in Washington 37 months or less; 21 percent never held any other elective office. Many plunged into politics because they were dismayed about the nation’s trajectory under the current president and his predecessor. Many have only dim memories of a more dynamic America, and have little aptitude for politics suited to, and aimed at restoring, vibrancy.
Progressives often are ambivalent about scarcities because they see themselves as administrators of rationing. But President Bill Clinton, refuting opposition (much of it from Democrats) to the North American Free Trade Agreement, splendidly said: “Protectionism is just a fancy word for giving up.”
Opposition to immigration because the economy supposedly cannot generate sufficient jobs is similar defeatism. Zero-sum reasoning about a fixed quantity of American opportunity is for an America in a defensive crouch, which is not for conservatives.
georgewill@washpost.com
Source Article from http://nypost.com/2014/02/16/why-immigration-reform-matters/
Why immigration reform matters
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